Let me tell you a story

Tomorrow is a big day for aspiring romance writers. It's the day when the next stage of the New Voices contest is announced. When the ten writers whose work was selected to go into the second stage and write another chapter of their story learn which four of them will now be asked for the final entry - to write the pivotal moment between their characters.

Four entries out of 825 - it's a very small proportion of the oringinal entries who will now be seens as winners of this stage. But does that make the other 821 entrants 'losers' - not in my book. 825 people put their words and their dreams on- line and on the line. And while they all did it with varying degrees of success in editorial assessment terms - they also all succeeded in doing what writers do - they wrote.

There has been a variety of responses to the announcement of the results - but one that has saddened me by prevailing is the wash of disapointment - natural disapointment - that has tended in some cases to slide over the line into negativity. If this chapter didn't succeed as it is, then it's no good. And if it's no good then I'm no good as a writer seems to be the assumption. Or - I can't see what was wrong with my chapter - everyone on the web site loved it - they must be 'moving the goalposts' or 'changing the rules'. Neither of which is true. But it can feel that way. I know - I've been there.

As you know I'm celebrating 25 years of being published. The Chalk Line was published in December 1984 . . . but my next book wasn't out until 1986. The reason for the gap? You can call it second book blues, but the truth is that I didn't get another book right until then. I can excuse myself by saying that my mother was dying or that I was ill myself but the fact remains that the two books I wrote after The Chalk Line just did not work. Particularly not the one between The Chalk Line and Game of Hazard, which was the book I managed to revise to publication standard.

The one in the middle was called Chase The Dawn. And as I write this I have in front of me the revsion letters that my then editor sent me about this book - five different letters ! After each one I tried top do the revisions - and just couldn't get them right. The letters are also spread over four years because I ended up doing the sensible thing - and looking back - the best thing - and put the book away for about 18 months so that then I could look at it much ore clearly when I brought it out.

What was so wrong with the book? With the benefit of hindsight, I can now honestly say not that much. Or rather, not that many things but the fact that I hadn't done one basic thing that I now hear myself advising would-be authors to do all the time.

Keep it simple. Dig deep.

Or to quote one of the revision letters - probably the first - I didn't 'delve deeply enough into your central characters' motives and personalities to integrate their actions into the devlopment of the relationship.' But honestly, remembering back, I really thought I had done that. I remember staring at the revisions letters wondering just what it all meant. How could they say this? I was a failure - a one book wonder who would never be published again.

Today, looking at those letters, I see where so much of my teaching and commenting, the sort of things I put in the 12 Point Guide come from. And the important thing is that although those letters were written back in the 1980, by an editor who hasn't worked for M&B for - what - 20 years? - they show that the things editors have been looking for have always been the same.

Delve deeply into your characters' motives and personalities

Go all out for emotional identification with your heroine. If you live inside her head then your reader will too. (These days it would be identification with both hero and heroine - there wasn't scope for dual point of view then)

Make the reader understand that what she(they) thought and did were her (their) only possible reactions at the time

Get inside your characters' skin so that the developing relationship is no longer swamped by the convolutions of the plot.

It all seems so obvious to me now - but then I was too close to my book to see what they meant.

And the end of this story?

If you look on my backlist page, you'll see it there -

Chase the Dawn 1988

It took me four years but I got there.

And what has always intrigued me is that while I ended up feeling quite sick at the sight of that manuscript, and eventually that book, Chase the Dawn is one of the books I have written that I have had most personal mail about, that so many people have said is one of their favourites. Readers say 'Chase the Dawn - oh, I loved that book.' It might be 20 years old but people remember it.

And no one has ever said anything about being able to see all the blood sweat and tears (lots of them!) that went into that book.

So what am I saying? I'm saying that I and every author I know has been through the rejection of 'this doesn't work'. I know how it feels to think I'll never be a writer - I just can't get this. And I know how it feels to have your precious work sent back to you and to feel you have to start all over again.

I used to have a routine when I got rejections/rewrites/revisions. I used to go into the garage and scream, stamp my feet - and fling the rejected manuscript at the wall. Then when I'd calmed down, I'd pick it all up, put it back in order - and I'd reread the rejection letter to see what I could do about it. It was that 'what can I do about it' that got me into being a writer.

I learned so much from those rejections. And from reading and studying the books that did make it. There weren't contests then but I wish there had been - not from the winning point of view but from the value of the lessons in writing romance that the chosen chapters and the editors' comments on them can reveal if you just take note.

What is it they say - that success is picking yourself up one more time than you are knocked down. If you think you're a 'loser' then you will probably stay down - but if you look at what you can learn from all this and work with it, I'll be willing to bet that there will be way more than the ten winners on one list - or the 45 on the 'see again' list.

But the only person who can make that happen is you.

What gets you going?

The UK newspaper The Guardian had an interesting article in its Weekend Magazine on Saturday. The article is called Works Like A Charm and in it “writers reveal what gets the creative juices going”. And it makes fascinating reading.

For Jonathan Franzen, it’s a squeaky chair. For David Guterson, it’s driving (that sounds potentially a little dangerous to me – if I got absorbed in one of my more emotional scenes while driving, I can’t imagine where I’d end up – or even if I’d end up anywhere but in the hospital! Jay McInerney likes to hold a half million years axe in his hand – I can see that working. Just think of all the stories that piece of stone has seen in all its 500,000 years on this planet. Jane Smiley likes hot water – I can relate to that too – but a shower not a bath. There’s something about the activity of a shower – the rush of the water, down on to your head, that stimulates and gets you ready for the day. A bath slows you down, relaxes and unwinds. After a bath I’d fall asleep, not write. And Douglas Coupland likes chocolate. I’ll just bet that lots and lots of authors will relate to that. But not me. Just occasionally, if I’m rushing to a deadline, and I need the boost, and if we have any chocolate in the house, (ie if the BM hasn’t eaten every last scrap of it) I’ll snaffle some and chomp it down. But then it’s wasted really because I don’t even taste it – just get it into my system fast.

These ideas are all taken from a book called How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors edited by Dan Crowe and it sounds like a great read, especially if you’re one of those nosy types- like me - who just loves to know how other authors do it – where they work, what hours they put in, what gets them going, what music they like to listen to – if they like to listen to anything. I’ve become so enamoured of silence that I can just about tolerate the cats’ purrs. Just.

Of course this made me think about my own writing life and what gets me creating – and of all of these writers, I think I’d have the most connection with David Guterson - though it would be a fiendishly dangerous partnership. You see, I find that long journeys – cars, trains, plane – are what start my imaginative juices flowing. But only if I’m a passenger.

I know this all started when I was a child. Way back in those prehistoric days when my father used to drive us - as an example – over the Pennines from Yorkshire to Lancashire and then on to Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester or perhaps head in the other direction as I did at Easter and go to Scarborough. Long journeys crammed into the back seat of the car with at least two, possibly three of my sisters alongside me. There was no car radio, no ipod to listen to. Reading books made me sick – anything at all made my sister Anne sick - so I needed distractions. I would sit by the window and stare out of it. In the daytime I could watch the streets and houses, the cars and the people go by. In the day time we could play ‘Pub Cricket’ – you watch for a pub sign on your side of the road. If it’s the Queen Mary, you earn 2 ‘legs’ – 2 runs for your team – if it’s the ‘Coach and Horses’ you get at least 8 ‘legs’ and there’s plenty of scope for arguing that this particular coach needs a half dozen horses to pull it. Fox and Geese was another great one. But if you get the King’s Arms or the Maypole then there were no legs, no runs and your turn was up. And the sister on the other side of the car got her go.

But that was in daylight. Often, after a long day out, we would head home in the darkness. And the road over the Pennines, before the motorway was built, was pitch black. No street lights, barely a sign of habitation, or road markings. A few stray sheep that might stupidly wander on to the road from grazing on the moorland – and our car. So I would stare out of the window into the darkness – and make up stories in my head. In my imagination I was an escaping princess – or a kidnapped heroine – and in the car were not my sisters and parents but whoever I wanted to people my imaginary world with. Heroic saviours, dangerous kidnappers, evil stepmothers, loyal servants . . . and out there – beyond the darkness, perhaps behind me, hunting us down, or coming to save me – it depended on the story I was telling myself – were . . . well behind me was anyone and everyone I could possibly imagine. The story could grow and develop and become as big as I wanted – or it could stay small and intimate and just within the darkness of the car.

And I still do that. Put me in the passenger seat of a car – on the way to Scarborough or wherever - and once I’m sure that I have all the travel documents I need and that the BM knows the way – and I’ll drift – off into an imaginary world where anything is possible. I’ve created the seeds of so may of my stories this way. And I always have a pen and note pad with me ready to note down the inspiration when it strikes. I still remember vividly exactly where in Lincolnshire I was when the line ‘So you’d better tell me who you are because one thing’s for certain, you’re definitely not my wife,’ came into my head. And I had to scribble it down fast before I lost it – and then I had to find a story in which to fit it. And the scenes to lead up to it. (Chase The Dawn if you’re interested.)

So that’s one thing that works for me. Lying down with my eyes closed does too. It must be the darkness and me alone with my imagination that does it. I let ideas steep in my mind just as I’m falling asleep and can just about guarantee that when I wake up I’m ready to go and the ideas are there.

I’m heading for London on Wednesday. We’re going to the RNA Awards lunch at the Savoy. So I’m expecting to sit and daydream as I watch the countryside go by. And I really hope I’ll come up with a wonderful new idea. Because I’ll be meeting my editor at the Savoy and I’ll just bet that one of her very first questions will be ‘And what’s your next book going to be about.’
So – the writers out the, reading this – what gets you going ? What starts the ideas flowing? I’m always ready to learn a good tip.